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14 tracks, 70 minutes. Billy Mahonie's second album, first for Southern. Mixture of heavy rock, jazz and folk with a heavy sharp and focused sound.

Recorded at Southern Studios and Moat in London, What Becomes Before represents a leap forward for the band as well as the individuial members. Ditching their noodley past and stretching both the language of what has previously been dubbed as 'post-rock' into realms of heavy rock, jazz, and folk, bringing forth a heavier sharper and more focused sound which will surely foil the pigeon holers and rock intelligensia. What Becomes Before surprises the listener at every turn, never allowing its audience to become complacent.

"Billy Mahonie's smooth, midnight instrumentals feature bright, wandering guitar lines, rising bass layers, trumpet, and full, gritty rhythm guitar. The Billy Mahonie mood progresses from simple, accessible ditties into King Crimson-like hard prog and back on this album. The trumpet on two of the tracks comes from Ian Watson, who also helped write the pieces." - Allmusic

"This time, the dynamics are on lockdown and Billy Mahonie hurl offcuts of dub and folk (check the great 'False Calm') into the mix. They sound less like a band who'd sell their nieces to slavery in exchange for a Steve Albini thumbs-up; more like four men ploughing their own furrow, because they can." - NME

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released June 1, 2001

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Southern RecordsLondon, UK

Fiercely independent since forever, Southern Records has a musical pedigree which stretches way back to 1977, when a band
called Crass was founded (and proceeded to change punk & the world forever...but that's another story). For years Southern operated as a recording studio & the biz wheels behind labels like Crass, Corpus Christi, Bluurg & Dischord, before launching an eponymous imprint in 1991...more